Marietta High School is big on tradition, especially when it comes to Blue Devils football. And so is the Marietta Kiwanis Club, where one of the traditions for the past half century has been hosting the MHS football coach to lunch on the eve of the season opener.

This columnist, an MHS grad and 57-year Kiwanian, has chaired the program about 30 years.

That tradition was in play again on Thursday, when Coach Friday Richards, new athletic director Paul Hall and longtime MHS stadium announcer Hap Smith shared the podium.

Smith started the proceedings by recounting the relations between the team and club.

"I remember coming here to the Kiwanis 50 years ago as an 8 year old with my father (MDJ publisher Brooks Smith) - who was a Rotarian - because the Marietta Kiwanis Club pulled off a major coup over their Rotarian counterparts by coaxing Marietta High Football Coach French Johnson to review the upcoming season for the 1959 football team, a powerhouse group that eventually played for the state championship."

Marietta is the winningest football program among all public schools in the Atlanta region with 565 wins. Coach Richards is responsible for almost 20 percent of the total, Smith said.

"Coach Red Pressley, Coach French Johnson and Coach Ray Broadway each had an undefeated regular season during their careers," Smith said. "Coach Richards has had two, just one less than former Coach Dexter Wood. Richards' teams have won four region championships and made nine state playoff appearances, and only missed by 15 seconds in a heartbreaker the right to play for another state championship."

Not surprisingly, much has changed at MHS during the past 50 years, he said.

"Fifty years ago, 90 percent of the people in this room would have been at the stadium on opening night, and the other 10 percent would have been listening to Pepper Martin broadcast the game at home on WFOM Radio," Smith said. "Most of you here today won't be there. Things have changed."

But the school and its football team are two of the big things that give the city its distinctiveness and continue to make it special, he declared.

He then bragged a bit more about Coach Richards, who is now the dean of Cobb high school football coaches.

"Friday has sent 140 players to colleges including Georgia, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Stanford, Colgate, Dartmouth, Memphis, the Naval Academy and West Point," he said. "But he may be prouder of those far less talented players who piled in his van on countless Saturdays in January and February each year to ride hundreds of miles to little known schools in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama and even Massachusetts, hoping to get a scholarship.

"He's even sent players to small, obscure schools in California, Iowa, Minnesota and Oregon. But not many people realize he has also helped find scholarships for countless athletes, both male and female, who competed against Marietta for other Cobb County schools.

"Forty-four Blue Devils have been named to the first-team All-State team and six were named All Americans. And fourteen have played in the NFL. This year almost 200 players, cheerleaders and band members will be making memories at historic Northcutt Stadium that will last a lifetime."

Then, it was Coach Richards' turn. He took a different tack this year, offering a quiz about Blue Devil history and handing out $2 bills to those with correct guesses. Here's a sampling:

Q: What does Marietta High's Northcutt Stadium have that no other high school in Cobb County or Fulton has?

A: Natural grass on our football field.

Q: Who was the biggest player on the Marietta state championship team in 1967?

A: All-State and future NFL player Jim Cagle, who stood 6-feet, 5-inches tall and weighed 210 pounds.

Q: What does the biggest player on this year's team weigh?

A: 353 pounds. And there are two others who weigh more than 300.

Q: Of the 10 regular season opponents that MHS will play this year, how many of those schools were not in existence when Richards began coaching at MHS?

A: Six. They are Northview, Woodstock, East Paulding, Etowah, Harrison and Kennesaw Mountain high schools. Only North Cobb, Cherokee, McEachern and South Cobb were open 31 years ago.

Q: How many football players are in the program at Marietta High?

A: 115.

Q: How many players were on the state championship team in 1967?

A: 35.

Q: What are the five largest admission-paid events each year in Marietta?

A: The five MHS home games. And there's only one event of any kind that's any bigger, which is the Fourth of July parade.

Q: Which Marietta linebacker still holds the record for most tackles in a game?

A: The school's new athletic director and former assistant coach, Paul Hall.

"The hardest part of my job is going to be not standing on the sidelines this year next to Coach Friday," Hall then told the club.

We're sure that's true.

Bill Kinney is associate editor of The Marietta Daily Journal.

Q: What manager for the Blue Devils football team last year is now a manager for the Kentucky Wildcat football team?

A: Jaimie Richards - Coach Richards' daughter.

Q: What MHS student was kicked out of school for organizing a gambling pool on the college basketball post-season tournament? Here's a hint: He was one time shot on Marietta Square while delivering the mail as a college student. And another hint: He was arrested, but not convicted, of using a fake post office ID to get into the gambling area of a Florida jai alai game? And a final hint: He later became a successful Marietta banker and was named Cobb County Citizen of the Year by the Marietta Daily Journal.

A: Wyman Pilcher - who was seated on the dais next to Richards.